I grew up playing a little-known game called Acquire. I don’t run across many people outside of my family who are familiar with this game, but once people play it, they are hooked. It’s sort of like Monopoly meets Pit (except a lot more complicated than either).

Acquire is about buying stocks. You have a “hand” of tiles which allow you to start companies (hotels in the old school version, but I have the newer set, pictured below)(picture not taken by me), increase the size of companies, and merge companies into other companies. You buy stocks in these companies, and, depending on how the tiles fall, you can sell these stocks for money (hopefully for more than you paid), parlay stocks from a smaller company into stocks in a larger (and thus more expensive) company, or hold onto them until the end of the game, when they could be very valuable.

I know what you’re thinking: that doesn’t sound fun at all. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to convey the fun of the game in this simple blog post. However, if you’re really interested, you’re all invited to my house for a giant Acquire tournament! It is deceptively simple, as you soon find out when you’re forced to purchase a stock which might have implications 3 or 4 turns from now and you have to count your stocks, your opponents stocks, your money, your opponents money, and the number of stocks left for that company 5 or 6 times each, trying to predict how it will all end out.

The thing that makes Acquire the best board game ever, is that every game is different. For such a small board, you’d be amazed at all the combinations you can have. The board shapes up depending on how many people you have and how the tiles come up, and there are even multiple different ways for the game to end. Sometimes you have one big company that eats up all the others. Sometimes you have 2 or 3 even sized companies. Sometimes the guy with all the cash wins. Sometimes the girl with all the stocks wins.

The tricky part is that you can only buy 3 stocks per turn, but you have many different things going on at the same time. So the hard part is deciding what to buy. Do you get majority stockholder in this company, or do you get second place in these two? If you buy one stock is that going to be enough to hold on until the company merges, or do you need to buy two? But if you buy two, what else can’t you buy? Who seems to be doing better at the moment? Can I sabotage them somehow by giving majority to someone else who’s not doing as well?

It’s exhilarating, and it’s hard. When you get done you feel like you’ve really given your brain a workout. And if you can do that while having fun, what’s not to love?

Some people complain that the game takes too long. Honestly though, I think our average is around an hour and a half per game. To me, that’s not really much longer than any other board game you’re going to play. And it’s a lot more fun than any of those other games anyway.

Trust me on this one: Best. Board game. Ever.